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I'll Take My Stand
by The Twelve Southerners
THE authors contributing to this book are Southerners, well acquainted with one another and of similar tastes, though not necessarily living in the same physical community, and perhaps only at this moment aware of themselves as a single group of men. By conversation and exchange of letters over a number of years it had developed that they entertained many convictions in common, and it was decided to make a volume in which each one should furnish his views upon a chosen topic. This was the general background. But background and consultation as to the various topics were enough; there was to be no further collaboration. And so no single author is responsible for any view outside his own article. It was through the good fortune of some deeper agreement that the book was expected to achieve its unity. All the articles bear in the same sense upon the book's title-subject: all tend to support a Southern way of life against what may be called the American or prevailing way; and all as much as agree that the best terms in which to represent the distinction are contained in the phrase, Agrarian versus Industrial.
But after the book was under way it seemed a pity if the contributors, limited as they were within their special subjects, should stop short of showing how close their agreements really were. On the contrary, it seemed that they ought to go on and make themselves known as a group already consolidated by a set of principles which could be stated with a good deal of particularity. This might prove useful for the sake of future reference, if they should undertake any further joint publication. It was then decided to prepare a general introduction for the book which would state briefly the common convictions of the group. This is the statement. To it every one of the contributors in this book has subscribed.
Nobody now proposes for the South, or far any other community in this country, an independent political destiny. That idea is thought to have been finished in 1805. But how far shall the South surrender its moral, social, and economic autonomy to the victorious principle of Union? That question remains open. The South is a minority section that has hitherto been jealous of its minority right to live its own kind of life. The South scarcely hopes to determine the other sections, but it does propose to determine itself, within the utmost limits of legal action. Of late, however, there is the melancholy fact that the South itself has wavered a little and shown signs of wanting to join up behind the common or American industrial ideal. It is against that tendency that this book is written. The younger Southerners, who are being converted frequently to the industrial gospel, must come back to the support of the Southern tradition. They must be persuaded to look very critically at the advantages of becoming a "new South" which will be only an undistinguished replica of the usual industrial community.
But there are many other minority communities opposed to industrialism, and wanting a much simpler economy to live by. The communities and private persons sharing the agrarian tastes are to be found widely within the Union. Proper living is a matter of the intelligence and the will, does not depend on the local climate or geography, and is capable of a definition which is general and not Southern at all. Southerners have a filial duty to discharge to their own section. But their cause is precarious and they must seek alliances with sympathetic communities everywhere. The members of the present group would be happy to be counted as members of a national agrarian movement.
Industrialism is the economic organization of the collective American society. It means the decision of society to invest its economic resources in the applied sciences. But the word science has acquired a certain sanctitude. It is out of order to quarrel with science in the abstract, or even with the applied sciences when their applications are made subject to criticism and intelligence. The capitalization of the applied sciences has now become extravagant and uncritical; it has enslaved our human energies to a degree now clearly felt to be burdensome. The apologists of industrialism do not like to meet this charge directly; so they often take refuge in saying that they are devoted simply to science! They are really devoted to the applied sciences and to practical production. Therefore it is necessary to employ a certain skepticism even at the expense of the Cult of Science, and to say, It is an Americanism, which looks innocent and disinterested, but really is not either.
The contribution that science can make to a labor is to render it easier by the help of a tool or a process, and to assure the laborer of his perfect economic security while he is engaged upon it. Then it can be performed with leisure and enjoyment. But the modern laborer has not exactly received this benefit under the industrial regime. His labor is hard, its tempo is fierce, and his employment is insecure. The first principle of a good labor is that it must be effective, but the second principle is that it must be enjoyed. Labor is one of the largest items in the human career; it is a modest demand to ask that it may partake of happiness.
The regular act of applied science is to introduce into labor a labor-saving device or a machine. Whether this is a benefit depends on how far it is advisable to save the labor The philosophy of applied science is generally quite sure that the saving of labor is a pure gain, and that the more of it the better. This is to assume that labor is an evil, that only the end of labor or the material product is good. On this assumption labor becomes mercenary and servile, and it is no wonder if many forms of modern labor are accepted without resentment though they are evidently brutalizing. The act of labor as one of the happy functions of human life has been in effect abandoned, and is practiced solely for its rewards.
Even the apologists of industrialism have been obliged to admit that some economic evils follow in the wake of the machines. These are such as overproduction, unemployment, and a growing inequality in the distribution of wealth. But the remedies proposed by the apologists are always homeopathic. They expect the evils to disappear when we have bigger and better machines, and more of them. Their remedial programs, therefore, look forward to more industrialism. Sometimes they see the system righting itself spontaneously and without direction: they are Optimists. Sometimes they rely on the benevolence of capital, or the militancy of labor, to bring about a fairer division of the spoils: they are Cooperationists or Socialists. And sometimes they expect to find super-engineers, in the shape of Boards of Control, who will adapt production to consumption and regulate prices and guarantee business against fluctuations: they are Sovietists. With respect to these last it must be insisted that the true Sovietists or Communists-if the term may be used here in the European sense-are the Industrialists themselves. They would have the government set up an economic super-organization, which in turn would become the government. We therefore look upon the Communist menace as a menace indeed, but not as a Red one; because it is simply according to the blind drift of our industrial development to expect in America at last much the same economic system as that imposed by violence upon Russia in 1917.
Turning to consumption, as the grand end which justifies the evil of modern labor, we find that we have been deceived. We have more time in which to consume, and many more products to be consumed. But the tempo of our labors communicates itself to our satisfactions, and these also become brutal and hurried. The constitution of the natural man probably does not permit him to shorten his labor-time and enlarge his consuming-time indefinitely. He has to pay the penalty in satiety and aimlessness. The modern man has lost his sense of vocation.
Religion can hardly expect to flourish in an industrial society. Religion is our submission to the general intention of a nature that is fairly inscrutable; it is the sense of our role as creatures within it. But nature industrialized, transformed into cities and artificial habitations, manufactured into commodities, is no longer nature but a highly simplified picture of nature. We receive the illusion of having power over nature, and lose the sense of nature as something mysterious and contingent. The God of nature under these conditions is merely an amiable expression, a superfluity, and the philosophical understanding ordinarily carried in the religious experience is not there for us to have.
Nor do the arts have a proper life under industrialism, with the general decay of sensibility which attends it. Art depends, in general, like religion, on a right attitude to nature; and in particular on a free and disinterested observation of nature that occurs only in leisure. Neither the creation nor the understanding of works of art is possible in an industrial age except by some local and unlikely suspension of the industrial drive.
The amenities of life also suffer under the curse of a strictly-business or industrial civilization. They consist in such practices as manners, conversation, hospitality, sympathy, family life, romantic love-in the social exchanges which reveal and develop sensibility in human affairs. If religion and the arts are founded on right relations of man- to-nature, these are founded on right relations of man-to- man.
Apologists of industrialism are even inclined to admit that its actual processes may have upon its victims the spiritual effects just described. But they think that all can be made right by extraordinary educational efforts, by all sorts of cultural institutions and endowments. They would cure the poverty of the contemporary spirit by hiring experts to instruct it in spite of itself in the historic culture. But salvation is hardly to be encountered on that road. The trouble with the life-pattern is to be located at its economic base, and we cannot rebuild it by pouring in soft materials from the top. The young men and women in colleges, for example, if they are already placed in a false way of life, cannot make more than an inconsequential acquaintance with the arts and humanities transmitted to them. Or else the understanding of these arts and humanities will but make them the more wretched in their own destitution.
The "Humanists" are too abstract. Humanism, properly speaking, is not an abstract system, but a culture, the whole way in which we live, act, think, and feel. It is a kind of imaginatively balanced life lived out in a definite social tradition. And, in the concrete, we believe that this, the genuine humanism, was rooted in the agrarian life of the older South and of other parts of the country that shared in such a tradition. It was not an abstract moral "check" derived from the classics-it was not soft material poured in from the top. It was deeply founded in the way of life itself-in its tables, chairs, portraits, festivals, laws, marriage customs. We cannot recover our native humanism by adopting some standard of taste that is critical enough to question the contemporary arts but not critical enough to question the social and economic life which is their ground.
The tempo of the industrial life is fast, but that is not the worst of it; it is accelerating. The ideal is not merely some set form of industrialism, with so many stable industries, but industrial progress, or an incessant extension of industrialization. It never proposes a specific goal; it initiates the infinite series. We have not merely capitalized certain industries; we have capitalized the laboratories and inventors, and undertaken to employ all the labor-saving devices that come out of them. But a fresh labor-saving device introduced into an industry does not emancipate the laborers in that industry so much as it evicts them. Applied at the expense of agriculture, for example, the new processes have reduced the part of the population supporting itself upon the soil to a smaller and smaller fraction. Of course no single labor-saving process is fatal; it brings on a period of unemployed labor and unemployed capital, but soon a new industry is devised which will put them both to work again, and a new commodity is thrown upon the market. The laborers were sufficiently embarrassed in the meantime, but, according to the theory, they will eventually be taken care of. It is now the public which is embarrassed; it feels obligated to purchase a commodity for which it had expressed no desire, but it is invited to make its budget equal to the strain. All might yet be well, and stability and comfort might again obtain, but for this: partly because of industrial ambitions and partly because the repressed creative impulse must break out somewhere, there will be a stream of further labor-saving devices in all industries, and the cycle will have to be repeated over and over. The result is an increasing disadjustment and instability.
It is an inevitable consequence of industrial progress that production greatly outruns the rate of natural consumption. To overcome the disparity, the producers, disguised as the pure idealists of progress, must coerce and wheedle the public into being loyal and steady consumers, in order to keep the machines running. So the rise of modern advertising-along with its twin, personal salesmanship-is the most significant development of our industrialism. Advertising means to persuade the consumers to want exactly what the applied sciences are able to furnish them. It consults the happiness of the consumer no more than it consulted the happiness of the laborer. It is the great effort of a false economy of life to approve itself. But its task grows more difficult even day.
It is strange, of course, that a majority of men anywhere could ever as with one mind become enamored of industrialism: a system that has so little regard for individual wants. There is evidently a kind of thinking that rejoices in setting up a social objective which has no relation to the individual. Men are prepared to sacrifice their private dignity and happiness to an abstract social ideal, and without asking whether the social ideal produces the welfare of any individual man whatsoever. But this is absurd. The responsibility of men is for their own welfare and that of their neighbors; not for the hypothetical welfare of some fabulous creature called society.
Opposed to the industrial society is the agrarian, which does not stand in particular need of definition. An agrarian society is hardly one that has no use at all for industries, for professional vocations, for scholars and artists, and for the life of cities. Technically, perhaps, an agrarian society is one in which agriculture is the leading vocation, whether for wealth, for pleasure, or for prestige-a form of labor that is pursued with intelligence and leisure, and that becomes the model to which the other forms approach as well as they may. But an agrarian regime will be secured readily enough where the superfluous industries are not allowed to rise against it. The theory of agrarianism is that the culture of the soil is the best and most sensitive of vocations, and that therefore it should have the economic preference and enlist the maximum number of workers.
These principles do not intend to be very specific in proposing any practical measures. How may the little agrarian community resist the Chamber of Commerce of its county seat, which is always trying to import some foreign industry that cannot be assimilated to the life-pattern of the community? Just what must the Southern leaders do to defend the traditional Southern life ? How may the Southern and the Western agrarians unite for effective action? Should the agrarian forces try to capture the Democratic party, which historically is so closely affiliated with the defense of individualism, the small community, the state, the South ? Or must the agrarians-even the Southern ones-abandon the Democratic party to its fate and try a new one? What legislation could most profitably be championed by the powerful agrarians in the Senate of the United States? What anti-industrial measures might promise to stop the advances of industrialism, or even undo some of them, with the least harm to those concerned? What policy should be pursued by the educators who have a tradition at heart? These and many other questions are of the greatest importance, but they cannot be answered here.
For, in conclusion, this much is clear: If a community, or a section, or a race, or an age, is groaning under industrialism, and well aware that it is an evil dispensation, it must find the way to throw it off. To think that this cannot be done is pusillanimous. And if the whole community, section, race, or age thinks it cannot be done, then it has simply lost its political genius and doomed itself to impotence.


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[304 U.S. 202, 203] Messrs. Charles H. Sachs and Chas. J. Margiotti, both of Pittsburgh, Pa., for petitioners.
Mr. Wm. H. Eckert, of Pittsburgh, Pa., for respondent.
Mr. Justice REED delivered the opinion of the Court.
On February 14, 1935, the New York Life Insurance Company, respondent here, filed its bill of complaint in the District Court for Western Pennsylvania to rescind, because of certain misrepresentations, the disability and double indemnity provisions in five policies issued on the life of defendant John G. Ruhlin, and made in favor of the other defendants as beneficiaries.
The bill alleged that the plaintiff is a mutual life insurance company incorporated under the laws of the state of New York and lawfully engaged in business in Pitts- [304 U.S. 202, 204] burgh, Pa.; that the defendants are temporarily living in Pennsylvania, though plaintiff does not know where their legal residence is; that on December 1, 1928, plaintiff wrote two policies of life insurance on the life of John G. Ruhlin, in the face amounts of $10,000 and $5,000; that on July 7, 1930, it wrote three additional, similar policies in the face amount of $4,000 each; that certain questions in the applications were answered falsely and fraudulently by the insured; that on November 1, 1934, John G. Ruhlin presented a claim for total and permanent disability benefits under each of the five policies. The company tendered into court the sum of $1,045.42, the aggregate amount of premiums paid for disability and double indemnity benefits, and prayed that the disability and double indemnity provisions be rescinded, and for other relief not material here.
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the policies had become incontestable, since the suit was brought more than two years after the date of each policy involved. The 'incontestability clause' of each of the policies reads as follows: 'Incontestability.-This Policy shall be incontestable after two years from its date of issue except for non-payment of premium and except as to provisions and conditions relating to Disability and Double Indemnity Benefits.'
The District Court overruled the motion to dismiss. The Circuit Court of Appeals, 3 Cir., 93 F.2d 416, affirmed the order, holding that, in view of their express terms, the incontestability clauses had no application to liability for disability and double indemnity benefits. It recognized that its decision was contrary to that reached by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (New York Life Insurance Company v. Kaufman, 78 F.2d 398), and by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (New York Life Insurance Company v. Truesdale, 79 F.2d 481), which had held that the exception in the [304 U.S. 202, 205] incontestability clause related only to provisions and conditions actually set forth in the policy itself, compare Strochmann v. Mutual Life Insurance Co., 300 U.S. 435 , 57 S.Ct. 607, and that fraud was not mentioned in any of those provisions. Ruhlin petitioned for certiorari, asserting the conflict of circuits. The company filed a memorandum admitting the conflict, and raising no objection to the granting of the writ. Because of the conflict of circuits, the Court granted certiorari, 302 U.S. 681 , 58 S.Ct. 408, 82 L.Ed. --.
It was stated in Carpenter v. Providence Washington Insurance Co., 16 Pet. 495, 511, that questions concerning the proper construction of contracts of insurance are 'questions of general commercial law,' and that state decisions on the subject, though entitled to great respect, 'cannot conclude the judgment of this court.' A limitation was put on this doctrine in Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 293 U.S. 335, 340 , 55 S.Ct. 154, 156. Putting aside all questions of power, the Court interpreted a specific provision of an insurance contract in accordance with the decision of the highest court of the state of Virginia, where delivery was made. 'All that is here for our decision is the meaning, the tacit implications, of a particular set of words, which as experience has shown, may yield a different answer to this reader and to that one. With choice so 'balanced with doubt,' we accept as our guide the law declared by the state where the contract had its being.' The decision in Eric Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 , 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. --, decided April 25, 1938, goes further, and settles the question of power. The subject is now to be governed, even in the absence of state statute, by the decisions of the appropriate state court. The doctrine applies though the question of construction arises not in an action at law, but in a suit in equity. Compare Mason v. United States, 260 U.S. 545, 557 , 558 S., 43 S.Ct. 200, 203.
Had Erie Railroad v. Tompkins been announced at some prior date the course of this case might have been different. This court might not have issued a writ of cer- [304 U.S. 202, 206] tiorari. Rule 38(5) of the Supreme Court Rules, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 354, indicates that this Court will consider, as a reason for granting a writ of certiorari, the fact that 'a Circuit Court of Appeals has rendered a decision in conflict with the decision of another Circuit Court of Appeals on the same matter.' Since jurisdiction to bring up cases by certiorari from the Circuit Courts of Appeals was given to this Court in order 'to secure uniformity of decision,' Magnum Import Co. v. Coty, 262 U.S. 159, 163 , 43 S.Ct. 531, 532, a showing of a conflict of circuits on a matter concerning which the federal courts had never denied their right to independent judgment prompted this Court to grant the writ. E.g., Aschenbrenner v. United States Fid. & G. Co., 292 U.S. 80, 82 , 54 S.Ct. 590, 591; Stroehmann v. Mutual Life Ins. Co., 300 U.S. 435, 440 , 57 S.Ct. 607, 609. As to questions controlled by state law, however, conflict among circuits is not of itself a reason for granting a writ of certiorari. The conflict may be merely corollary to a permissible difference of opinion in the state courts. The rules indicate that the Court will be persuaded to grant certiorari where a Circuit Court of Appeals 'has decided an important question of local law in a way probably in conflict with applicable local decisions.' No such showing was attempted by the petition. Nor was it contended that the decision below was 'probably untenable' and therefore probably in conflict with the state law as yet unannounced by the highest court of the state.
No decision at the present time could reconcile any 'conflict of circuits,' or do more than enunciate a tentative rule to guide particular federal courts. Therefore, even assuming that it is adequately presented on the record, we decline to decide the issue of state law. However, we shall not dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted. In view of the fact that the question in the case was regarded below, both by the courts and by counsel, as one of 'general' or 'federal' law, the [304 U.S. 202, 207] interest of justice requires that the judgment be vacated and the cause remanded for the enforcement of the applicable principles of state law. See Villa v. Van Schaick, 299 U.S. 152, 155 , 156 S., 57 S.Ct. 128, 129; Duke Power Co. v. Greenwood County, 299 U.S. 259, 267 , 268 S., 57 S. Ct. 202, 205; Watts, Watts & Co. v. Unione Austriaca, 248 U.S. 9, 21 , 39 S.Ct. 1, 3 A.L.R. 323.
It is true that the Circuit Court of Appeals, in rendering judgment on reargument, said (see 3 Cir., 93 F.2d 416, 417): 'Furthermore, both the Court of Appeals of New York and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania have held that the incontestability clause here involved clearly excepts the double indemnity and disability provisions from its operation. Steinberg v. New York Life Ins. Co., 263 N.Y. 45, 188 N.E. 152, 90 A.L.R. 642; Manhattan Life Insurance Co. v. Schwartz, 274 N.Y. 374, 9 N.E.2d 16; Guise v. New York Life Ins. Co., 127 Pa.Super. 127, 191 A. 626. We have read the recent opinion of the Supreme Court of California in the case of Coodley v. New York Life Insurance Co., (9 Cal.2d 269) 70 P.2d 602, and the opinion of Judge Coughlin in the case of New York Life Insurance Co. v. Thomas, 27 Pa.Dist. & Co.Rep. 215, but are not persuaded that the learned District Judge erred. Since the company is domiciled in New York and the insured lives in Pennsylvania, and 'all that is here for our consideration is the meaning, the tacit implications, of a particular set of words,' 'for the sake of harmony and to avoid confusion' we shall follow the decision of those courts and hold that the insurance company is not barred by the incontestability clause from rescinding the double indemnity and disability provisions. Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 293 U.S. (335), 340, 55 S.Ct. 154; Trainor Co. v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Company, 290 U.S. 47, 54 , 54 S.Ct. 1, 2.'
It is not necessary here to consider whether, in the determination of the substantive Pennsylvania rule, the Circuit Court of Appeals was correct in declining to fol- [304 U.S. 202, 208] low the nisi prius Thomas Case, directly in point, and in applying the Guise Case, which was decided by an intermediate appellate court (127 Pa. Super. 127, 191 A. 626), and not the Supreme Court of the state as the court below stated, and which involved a defense of coverage, available even under an ordinary incontestability clause as the opinion in the Guise Case clearly states (127 Pa.Super. 127, at page 133, 191 A. 626).1
A different case might have been presented, and the facts and authorities developed in another fashion, if the parties had had in mind from the first the rule the Pennsylvania court would have applied. The pleadings might have shown in what place the policy was delivered,2 and perhaps other facts attending the making of the insurance contract. It may be noted that petitioner's brief asserts, without record reference, that the applications for the first two policies were made in Pennsylvania, and the application for the remaining three policies were made in Ohio. But as the record stands, we know only that at the time of bringing suit the respondent company was incorporated in New York, and lawfully engaged in business in Pittsburgh, and that the defendants were then temporarily living in Pennsylvania.
Application of the 'State law' to the present case, or any other controversy controlled by Erie R. Co. v. Tomp- [304 U.S. 202, 209] kins, does not present the disputants with duties difficult or strange. The parties and the federal courts must now search for and apply the entire body of substantive law governing an identical action in the state courts. Hitherto, even in what were termed matters of 'general' law, counsel had to investigate the enactments of the state Legislature. Now they must merely broaden their inquiry to include the decisions of the state courts, just as they would in a case tried in the state court, and just as they have always done in actions brought in the federal courts involving what were known as matters of 'local' law.
The judgment is vacated and the cause remanded to the District Court, for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion, with directions to permit such amendments of the pleadings as may be necessary for that purpose. It is so ordered.
Vacated and remanded.
Mr. Justice CARDOZO took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
[ Footnote 1 ] The Superior Court said (127 Pa.Super. 127, at 133, 191 A. 626, 629):
[ Footnote 2 ] Under the general doctrine the interpretation of an insurance contract depends on the law of the place where the policy is delivered. Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 293 U.S. 335 , at page 339, 55 S.Ct. 154, 156. We do not now determine which principle must be enforced if the Pennsylvania courts follow a different conflict of laws rule.
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Citation: 304 U.S. 202
Docket No: No. 596
Argued: March 10, 1938
Decided: May 02, 1938
Court: United States Supreme Court
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What are Chris Riddell's qualifications to talk about technology? What are the awards that Chris Riddell has won? I cannot seem to find ...
Facebook takes aim at Snapchat with new Slingshot app
The app is geared toward photo and video sharing with larger groups of people
Facebook has launched a new photo- and video-sharing app called Slingshot that's aimed squarely at popular cool-kid Snapchat.
Slingshot lets users take photos and videos that disappear in the app after they've been viewed and swiped away. Facebook is starting to roll it out Tuesday in the U.S. for iOS and Android.
Slingshot works a bit differently than Snapchat. It lets people send photo and video messages that disappear after a certain period of time. But unlike Snapchat, Slingshot requires the recipient to "sling" something back before they can view what they've been sent.
"With Slingshot, we wanted to build something where everybody is a creator and nobody is just a spectator," Facebook said in its announcement.
"Friends won't be able to see your shot until they sling something back to you. They can then reply with a reaction--or simply swipe your shot away," Facebook says.
That could make Facebook's app more interactive, but it could also turn users off who don't want to send a messages just to see what they've received.
Slingshot users have to provide their mobile number when they sign up for the app. The app checks their phone contacts to see which of their friends are using Slingshot, so they can send messages to them or invite them to join, according to the privacy policy.
Facebook is taking direct aim at Snapchat, even calling the company out in its announcement. "We've enjoyed using Snapchat to send each other ephemeral messages and expect there to be a variety of apps that explore this new way of sharing," it said.
Snapchat has been a bit of an annoyance to Facebook. Last year, the social network reportedly offered US$3 billion to buy Snapchat but it turned them down.
In 2012 Facebook launched Poke, an alternative to Snapchat, but it never took off the way Snapchat did.
Slingshot could provide a fun, new way for Facebook users to message each other. But could also be too little, too late. Time will tell.
Snapchat released a new tool of its own on Tuesday for sharing photos with larger groups of people, geared toward public events. It was unclear of the timing was a coincidence.
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is firstname.lastname@example.com


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Charlie Musslewhite at 2012 Memphis in May, Beale Street Music Fest Murray Street Productions and Artemis Media/ Heavenly Sight: A Vision Out of Blindness
We're proud to have legendary harpist Charlie Musslewhite on the program, live at the 2012 Beale Street Music Fest in Memphis, TN. Charlie is joined at the end of his set by childhood friend and guitar legend, Travis Wammack.
Harmonica master Charlie Musselwhite's life reads like a classic blues song: born in Mississippi, raised in Memphis and schooled on the South Side of Chicago. A groundbreaking recording artist since the 1960s, Musselwhite continues to create trailblazing music while remaining firmly rooted in the blues. His worldly-wise vocals, rich, melodic harmonica playing and deep country blues guitar work flawlessly accompany his often autobiographical and always memorable original songs. Living Blues says, "Musselwhite's rock-solid vocals creep up and overwhelm you before you know it. He plays magnificent harp with superb dexterity and phrasing. The results are amazing."
Over the last 43 years Musselwhite has released over 30 albums. Three of those — 1990s Ace Of Harps, 1991's Signature and 1993's In My Time — were recorded for Alligator Records and remain among his best-selling titles. Now, Charlie Musselwhite returns to Alligator with The Well. With musical flavors from Mississippi to Memphis to Chicago, The Well is steeped in the music of Charlie's youth — country and city blues as well as rockabilly and gospel — the music that inspired his signature sound. The fresh, new songs speak from his decades of experience, hard living, and his triumph over adversity.
The Well is the first full-band recording in Musselwhite's long career for which he wrote or co-wrote every track on the album, and it is the most personal and the emotionally deepest cycle of songs he has ever created. The Well was recorded at Los Angeles' legendary Sunset Sound with guitarist Dave Gonzales (Paladins, Hacienda Brothers), bassist John Bazz (The Blasters) and drummer Stephen Hodges (Tom Waits, Mavis Staples), and was produced by Chris Goldsmith (Ruthie Foster, Grammy-winning Blind Boys of Alabama). The revealing, autobiographical songs recall specific events and places in Musselwhite's amazingly colorful life. His conversational vocals and masterful harmonica work are perfectly matched with the stories he tells and the near-telepathic musicianship behind him. Simply put, The Well is Charlie Musselwhite at his very best.
Central to the album are stories looking back at hard times and personal healing. Dig The Pain recalls his drinking days, while The Well tells of his recovery. In Cook County Blues, he wryly remembers his short stint behind bars. The most poignant song on the album, Sad And Beautiful World — a duet with Charlie's close friend, legendary vocalist Mavis Staples — is his response to the tragic murder of his 93-year-old mother in her own home (and the house Charlie grew up in) during a burglary. Each track on The Well is a chapter from Charlie's life, and in the liner notes to the CD he offers some very personal insights into the meaning behind the songs.
According to Alligator president Bruce Iglauer, having Musselwhite back on the label is pure pleasure. "I'm thrilled to welcome Charlie back to the Alligator Records family. He's a real icon of American roots music, a brilliant harmonica player and a true storyteller as a vocalist and songwriter. Charlie's a terrific guy to work with, a genuine road warrior who is out there pleasing the fans night after night. We're looking forward to renewing a great relationship." And Musselwhite couldn't agree more, saying, "I don't think anybody is happier than I am being back in the Alligator family. It feels good to be home."
Musselwhite's personal history is the kind of story a novelist would sell his soul for, but his indomitable spirit is crafted by him alone. Tough times have been a huge part of his life, and have shaped him into a true working-class hero. His fans include young hipsters, Vietnam veterans, convicts, bikers, jazz aficionados, aging hippies and hard-core blues fans. He is a larger-than-life musical legend, writing and singing what he calls, "music from the heart." According to Musselwhite, "It's about the feeling, and about connecting with people. And blues, if it's real blues, is loaded with feeling. And it ain't about technique, either. It's about truth, connecting to the truth and communicating with the people."
Born into a blue collar family in Kosciusko, Mississippi on January 31, 1944 and raised by a single mother, Musselwhite grew up surrounded by blues, hillbilly and gospel music on the radio and outside his front door. His family moved to Memphis, where, as a teenager, he worked as a ditch digger, concrete layer and moonshine runner. Fascinated by the blues, Musselwhite began playing guitar and harmonica. It wasn't easy growing up a poor, white boy in Memphis, even among the rich musical influences the city offered. He felt like an outcast and a stranger (themes that have informed, inspired and haunted his music to this day). As a teen, Musselwhite attended parties hosted by Elvis Presley and hobnobbed with many of the local musicians, including Johnny Cash and Johnny Burnette, but the celebrities young Charlie sought out were Memphis' veteran bluesmen like Furry Lewis, Will Shade and Gus Cannon.
Following the path of so many, Musselwhite moved to Chicago looking for better paying work. While driving an exterminator truck as a day job, Charlie lived on the South Side and hung out in blues clubs at night, developing close friendships with blues icons Little Walter, Big Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Joe Williams, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Before long, he was sitting in at clubs with Muddy and others, building an impressive word-of-mouth reputation. Soon after, Charlie was being paid to play in the same South Side neighborhood. Noted blues journalist Dick Shurman says, "The black Chicago blues artists all liked Charlie as a person. They felt that he was one of them — a southern country boy with a deep affinity for the blues."
His first recording, under the name Memphis Charlie, was with Big Walter Horton on the famous Vanguard Records series, Chicago/The Blues/Today!. Signing with Vanguard, Musselwhite (along with Paul Butterfield who was as urban as Charlie was rural) brought the amplified harmonica blues to a new audience of young, white rock and rollers, who discovered that Charlie personified the cool and hip counter-culture icons they admired.
After the release of his first full-length LP — Stand Back! Here Comes Charlie Musselwhite's South Side Band — he was embraced by the growing youth counter-culture and the newly emerging progressive rock FM radio stations, especially on the West Coast. His iconic status established, he relocated to San Francisco, often playing the famed Fillmore Auditorium. Over the years, he has released albums on a variety of labels, ranging from straight blues to music mixing elements of jazz, gospel, Tex-Mex, Cuban and other world music, winning new fans at every turn. He has been touring nationally and internationally for four decades and is among the best-known and best-loved blues musicians in the world.
Musselwhite has guested on numerous recordings, as a featured player with Tom Waits, Eddie Vedder, Ben Harper, John Lee Hooker, Bonnie Raitt, The Blind Boys of Alabama, INXS and most recently Cyndi Lauper. He has shared stages with countless blues and rock musicians. He was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall Of Fame in 2010, has been nominated for six Grammy Awards and has won 24 Blues Music Awards. The San Francisco Chronicle says, "Charlie Musselwhite's harmonica playing shows taste, bite, restraint and power. He's one of the best, and as a bluesman, he's as real as they come."
Charlie Musselwhite today is as vital and creative as at any point in his long career. DownBeat calls him, "the undisputed champion of the blues harmonica." In addition to his always-busy schedule, he hosts a weekly radio show, "Charlie's Backroom," on KRSH-FM in Santa Rosa, California (streamed at KRSH.com Sundays at 10:00am PST). He considers himself a lifelong learner and is constantly perfecting his craft. With The Well, Charlie Musselwhite returns with the strongest, most intimate album of his career — a powerful, personal collection of songs. Musselwhite's blues, imparting his hard-won knowledge and working class wisdom, are a window into the deep well of his Mississippi soul.
We continue our guest host series, Heavenly Sight: A Vision Out of Blindness, brought to you by Murray Street Productions and Artemis Media.


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Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, ND and Virginia Union University in Decatur, GA have both adopted the Jenzabar EX enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
Sitting Bull is the 15th institution to join a consortium of tribal colleges using Jenzabar EX. The college purchased the software to gather institutional-wide data in real time, with the hope of improving administrative operations and delivering a higher level of student service. Administrators said they were also impressed with the Jenzabar team that developed a custom phased implementation process.
"Jenzabar was the ideal solution for Sitting Bull because of their experience accommodating the unique needs of tribal colleges," said Koreen Ressler, vice president of academics. "Jenzabar's ERP system will allow us to effectively manage data in a single database and help us streamline operations across the entire campus."
Virginia Union switched to Jenzabar software after experiencing a disappointing and lengthy implementation with another software vendor that wasn't satisfying the various needs of offices across campus, the university said in a statement. The university combined Jenzabar EX, which runs on Microsoft SQL Server, and the Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS) portal to provide self-service capabilities to users.
"With the largest freshman class the university has seen in five years this fall semester, it was crucial to go live on our administrative system to provide convenient services to students and staff," said Robert Gray, director of IT at Virginia Union U. "Jenzabar delivered on everything that was promised and exceeded our expectations."
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.
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The Root of STEM: The Buzz from the McBee Hive
The science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields are --and will be--essential in a world that is increasingly dependent on digital technology for our social interactions, economic livelihood, national security, and grumpy cat memes. But this is not to say that the STEM fields have nothing to benefit from the humanities or that technological invention and innovation precludes the vital place humanities education and research has in a digital landscape. While digital technology enhances studies in literature, history, philosophy, and modern and classical languages, and often these tools put humanities research on the cutting-edge of emergent topics, humanistic thought and concepts, the skills that are fostered by humanities education, and the fruits of humanities research can enrich the scholarly and commercial activities of those in the STEM disciplines.
As the stacks of McBee cards on my desk would attest, NEH was an "early adopter" of the notion that the humanities and STEM fields were not mutually exclusive. In fact, early grant-funded projects brought together scientists, technologists, and engineers with humanists to explore the interdisciplinary aspects of their respective fields and how each could benefit humanity.
In 1968, Princeton University submitted a successful application to establish a graduate program in civil engineering, focusing on integrating the humanities with engineering to inspire more efficient and elegant design.
Technology, having in the recent past provided the basis for industrialism, needs in the near future to be focused on the means for creating a more human life. Until engineers recognize that within their own tradition there exist works of humane elegance to serve as prototypes for new designs, they will not be likely to answers, by better designs or more vigorous criticisms of their own, the charges of ugly engineering and short-sighted policies.
Following up in 1970, NEH awarded Princeton funds to inaugurate the First National Conference on Civil Engineering: History, Heritage and the Humanities (EO-96-70-4204). The original grant application stated that the conference would show "how careful study of the past is essential for the sensible building of public works for the future" and would "bring humanistic studies to those who are likely to have [the] greatest influence on civil engineers of coming decades." The application concludes that "without sound knowledge of [the] origins and evolution of human conditions in [a] rapidly urbanized technological society, [it is] impossible to plan for better environment."
Another 1970 grant supported Pennsylvania State University's International Colloquium on the Philosophy of Science (EO-244-70-4667) during which philosophy and physics seminars were held in conjunction. The Colloquium emphasized the mutually beneficial and interdependent relationship between the two disciplines.
[P]hilosophers cannot solve basic problem without active cooperation of scientists while it would be difficult for any scientist or group of scientists to make a substantial contribution without the philosopher who deals with the entire life of the society, of which science is but one part.
Northwestern University's Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Science and Technology (EO-284-70-4127) invested NEH grant funds in expanding the Center's focus on social sciences to include instruction in the field of history, literature, and philosophy. The interdisciplinary approach highlighted science as a cultural phenomenon, the historical relationship between science and cultural activities, the philosophical aspects of science, the impact of science upon contemporary literature, and the interaction between science and religion.
ODH funds projects that creatively integrate technological and computational tools and humanistic sources. Even the Digitizing Early Grant Records (DEGR) project is a STEM-Humanities blend using modern technology to capture historic sources otherwise lost to technological obsolescence (sorry, Mr. McBee). The objects of humanistic research provide the data that fuels scientific, technological, and engineering innovation, which drives and advances cultural, artistic, and historic knowledge—it's the circle of (digital) life. To torture the analogy even further, the Humanities are at the root of STEM which, if allowed to blossom, gives flower to greater awareness and understanding of our shared human culture and technological capabilities.


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October: To be honest I have no idea what we did the entire month, I do know Garnett was an alligator for Halloween.
November: Celebrated Garnett's 1st Thanksgiving home and our 1st without Daddy Blake.
December: Christmas, G's 1st spent at home. Our home was quite, still and simple. Chirstmas wasn't Christmas without Daddy Blake.
January: The entire month Garnett
dressed at a SUPER SUPER HERO and we got a new friend, Odie! From the moment Garnett laid eyes on "Owie" he was in love. They were inseperable!
February: We spent a few weeks in Orlando with a friend, played with "Owie" and momma got to enjoy a nigh to herself on the waterfront.
March: We made a 14 hour drive home to attend a memorial service for Daddy Blake. While there we enjoyed sometime revisiting our old home and friends.
April: This may have been the 1st month that I can recall events that occured without looking at pictures or videos. April was filled with many doctor visits for Garnett, long waits on momma's end and Garnett mastered his balance bike :)
May: May and its MADNESS!!! May was a busy month, a month of new beginning. Garnett and I started what I guess you would call therapy, there was Easter, and Garnett LIVED in his pool. May was a rather difficult month.
June: June was just June, another day, another month, we survived. June also held Father's Day.
July: July 1st would have been Daddy Blake's 26th Birthday. Garnett spent many hours playing with water beads. More mornings then not we went to the pier for an early morning run and then stopped by the fountain were Garnett just had to put his feet in. Garnett also discovered that veggie sandwiches are pretty tasty.
August: August was an ugly month. We spent more time away from home then we did home. I believe we were both thankful to see August end. "Owie" journeyed onward, Garnett discovered the art of dress-up, we spent several nights at the pier and many mornings playing with "street paint".
September: What a month and its only half over. Garnett has enjoyed driving his tractor through our neighborhood, playing in the rain, riding his bike for hours and we spent a few days in the hospital.
Here's to another year. Many memories. Lots of laughs. Most of all hoping we both find peace, balance, happiness and light.


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We are only a handful of hours away from the 91st running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and unless you like waking up at zero-dark-thirty to queue up the mountain road, we have an easier way for you to follow all the Pikes Peak action. Teaming up with Red Bull this year, the organizers at Pikes Peak have made available a live stream of the race. Booyah internetz!
This means you can watch Sebastian Loeb and Peugeot attempt to crack the nine-minute barrier (the ten-minute barrier was just broken last year!), see Greg Tracy make his four-wheel debut at the Race to the Clouds on-board the Mitsubishi MiEV Evolution II electric race car (Monster Tajima is back with his electric supercar as well), and witness A&R lose a bet as Carlin Dunne attempts to set the outright motorcycle record on the Lightning Motorcycles electric superbike (Carlin has already posted the fastest qualifying time a motorcycle, petrol or electric, ever on the mountain).
To catch the action, you can either got to RedBull.tv or watch the live feed on the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb website. The racing starts at 8am (MDT), and will go according to the following running order (found after the jump). With weather expected to come through the Pikes Peak area, be advised that there could be delays.


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Who would want to hang sweet Bonnie?
Three years later, and there's still plenty of love for Red Dead Redemption. The people at SilkDogFilms are definitely fans, with a film, Red Dead Redemption: The Hanging of Bonnie MacFarlane, that has been in production for nearly a year. Light's at the end of the tunnel for these guys though, with the film prepping for release later this month. So enjoy the trailer, in all its 1970's hyper-violent pulpiness.
I'm going to go ahead and be that guy that asks. Why is John Marston being played by an old guy? First guess says that this is an alternate universe, as the main timeline doesn't support a story with John being that age. Second guess says that this is a fan film, so I should probably stop nitpicking.


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Crowdfunding Challenges Most Startups Don't Expect
It seems that almost every day, there's another startup proudly announcing that it has reached its crowdfunding goal. With so many success stories out there, it's easy for other aspiring entrepreneurs to believe that sites like Kickstarter are their golden ticket to launching a business. But the reality is, crowdfunding isn't always as simple as it seems.
"New entrepreneurs often believe that crowdfunding their venture or project is an easy endeavor," said Sang Lee, founder and CEO of Return on Change. "However, it requires much groundwork as well as a strong support network to truly make it a success. As they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch."
Whether you're looking to raise a small amount of startup cash or acquire a larger sum through equity crowdfunding, there are a few challenges you might face during the process that you may not have expected. Four crowdfunding platform executives shared the four biggest challenges that entrepreneurs face during their campaigns. [Equity Crowdfunding: 3 Facts Entrepreneurs Should Know]
Choosing the right platform
While all crowdfunding platforms serve the same purpose — raising money online from multiple donors and sources — not all of them are created equal. Consumer-use platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo are great for raising smaller amounts of money, but equity crowdfunding portals are best for entrepreneurs looking for sums in the millions. If you're interested in the latter, it's important to do your research and find the platform that will meet your needs.
"For new entrepreneurs, the biggest challenge is accessing investors to fund the capital ventures," said Matthew McGrath, CEO of Optimize Capital Markets. "There is an enormous number of investors who are willing and seeking to invest in these startup companies. It's a matter of allocating the opportunity."
McGrath advised thorough and diligent research into the size of the crowdfunding marketplace, the types of investors who are active, which sectors the portal focuses on, etc. From there, you can make an educated decision about the right portal to use. Choosing the wrong one can result in a loss of time, money and value, he said.
Planning a realistic goal amount and time frame
Many entrepreneurs, especially those new to the crowdfunding scene, tend to think that they will be able successfully raise all the money they need and then some by the time their campaign ends. It's important to be realistic about time and money when it comes to planning your campaign.
"One challenge area is when to begin raising [money] and how much to target via the crowdfunding site," said Shereen Shermak, CEO and fund manager Launch Angels. "Entrepreneurs often don't have a rule of thumb of how long a runway to create."
Consider how much capital you would need to take your business to the next major proof points, Shermak said. This is the starting point for the magnitude of your crowdfunding campaign.
"Entrepreneurs often believe that the crowdfunding sites will take over the fundraising process," Shermak added. "They should instead be prepared to fundraise in parallel to the online raise. This will create momentum for the online raise."
Building interest
So you've got a great business idea, and all your friends and family think it's great, too. That means the donations will come pouring in once you launch your campaign, right? Not necessarily. Doing a lot of prep work before your campaign will help create and maintain interest in your project.
"Gauging interest for your investment opportunity or project is a critical part of the process before you start mass blasting via social media," Lee told Business News Daily. "This implies an allocation of time as well as resources both beforehand and during the campaign. It's definitely a process that requires budgeting out the time and the manpower needed to have a successful fundraising campaign."
Lee noted that, even though people have told you that they would support the campaign, it gets lost in their email inbox. Without specific requests, it's difficult for people to actually pull the trigger on an investment or funding opportunity. Make sure to have personalized outreach to your first degree networks, and remember to ask for assistance in spreading the word when you ask for funding commitments, he said.
Playing the 'lead investor game'
Everyone knows that there's risk involved in any business venture. What investors want to know is, exactly how much of a risk will they be taking by offering you a large sum of money?
"The largest challenge entrepreneurs face generally while raising capital is what I like to call the 'lead investor game,'" said Ryan Feit, co-founder and CEO of SeedInvest. "It is a chicken and egg problem in which dozens of individual angel investors and even small venture funds express interest in investing, but ask the entrepreneur to come back to them when they have an investor who is leading the round [of funding]."
A lot of investors at the early stage simply want to de-risk investing by being the last money in the round once a lot of other sophisticated investors have already committed, Feit said. This often creates a scenario where founders have a few hundred thousand dollars in "commitments" for months without any way to actually close on anything. Using a reputable equity crowdfunding platform with accredited investors can help solve this problem.
While the 'lead investor' issue most commonly affects startups seeking large-scale investors, the same basic principle can apply to a smaller Kickstarter campaign: If potential funders see that no one is backing the project or that people are only contributing a few dollars, what incentive do they have to donate a large amount of money? This is where building interest and spreading the word become critical to raising the funds you need.
Even if you aren't launching a crowdfunding campaign at this time, Lee said it's important to learn about the industry, as well as what it takes to succeed: "It is the future of fundraising and will require familiarity by all business founders."
Originally published on Business News Daily.


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The Institute of Forensic Sciences is getting a new home.
Commissioners Court on Tuesday gave staff the go-ahead to finalize a land deal with the Texas Medical Center that would give the county 2.79 acres at the northeast corner of Old Spanish Trail and Bertner.
The deal would require construction to begin on the new nine-story Institute of Forensic Sciences facility within two years; Art Storey, the county's director of public infrastructure, said he plans to start in December 2013.
"Harris County is running out of its own capacity," said District Attorney Pat Lykos. who urged the court to move forward. "It's absolutely essential to the administration of justice that Commissioners Court did what they did today," the district attorney declared.
The county's new facility will handle autopsies and evidence testing. A separate county facility for DNA testing is expected to open elsewhere in the Medical Center, at 2450 Holcombe, this year.
See here for some background. This has been referred to as a "regional" crime lab, but so far the county and the city are not yet on the same page; in recent weeks, Mayor Parker has spoken about the possibility of going a different direction than the county. This story doesn't shed any new light on that.
County officials on Tuesday said they hope the city eventually will join them, though all stressed the county lab must expand to meet growing demand, regardless of the city's plan.
"There's been this discussion of yet another regional crime lab, and we already have the capability of doing that," County Judge Ed Emmett said.
"As Mayor Parker stated in her inaugural address, her goal is to create an independent crime lab that can handle all of the city's forensic needs," said Parker spokeswoman Jessica Michan. "We'll continue our dialogue with Harris County to, hopefully, achieve that goal together."
There are common interests, but as yet not a common vision. Maybe by the time this thing is built we'll have it all figured out.


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A major open access eBook: Post-Cinema: Theorizing 21st-Century Film Edited by Shane Denson and Julia Leyda (Falmer: REFRAME Books, 2016). |
In this end of year post, Film Studies For Free reflects on and links to some of its very favourite 2016 open access resources selected from the ones that this blog's author had a hand in producing, contributing to, or publishing.
It has been a (deadly) funny old year, to be sure, one that began with tributes aplenty to David Bowie and has concluded with ones to Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (see also here, here and here). David Hudson rounds up some of the cinematic losses here. And some of FSFF's own tributes are linked to below, alongside blog entries, amazing free ebooks, and wonderful journal issue contents.
FSFF wishes all its readers and supporters a happy, healthy 2017. And it looks forward to producing and purveying plenty more open access film studies resources in the year ahead.
FSFF wishes all its readers and supporters a happy, healthy 2017. And it looks forward to producing and purveying plenty more open access film studies resources in the year ahead.
- Film Studies For Free 2016 entries x 10:
- The Film-Play's the Thing: RIP Jacques Rivette 1928-2016
- New FILM CRITICISM, FILM-PHILOSOPHY, 12 new film and media open access eBooks, Mulvey and Dyer interviews, and lots of other links!,
- For the Starman Who Fell to Earth - In Memory of David Bowie
- New LOLA, [in]TRANSITION, MOVIE, Film-Philosophy, MOVIE, Film-Philosophy, Senses of Cinema plus a video essay on Todd Haynes' CAROL, and more!
- The Persistence of Vision: Videos on the Work of Film Theorists and Scholars
- For all to see, and to see the sense of: In Memory of V. F. Perkins (1936-2016)
- Almodovar Studies For Free
- My Year's Work in Audiovisual Essays and Videographic Film Studies
- We'll Tak' a Cup o' Kindness Yet: Awesome Open Access Film Studies Links to See Out 2016!
- Film Studies For Free Videographic Tributes Bookending the Year x 3
LOS OLVIDADOS / LAZARUS (Bowie meets Buñuel) by Catherine Grant
As last year, Kevin B. Lee polled "esteemed video essay creators, scholars, programmers, and devoted followers of the form to highlight the best video essays of the year. Each year it becomes more necessary to crowdsource this task, for in the words of notable video essayist David Verdeure / Filmscalpel, 'It has become impossible to keep up with all video essays that are made, with the form proliferating in both academic and film fan circles.' These poll results might offer some help in sorting out the standouts of the genre. Videos mentioned most frequently in this poll are embedded below, along with the individual lists."
- Open Access Film Studies eBooks x 2!
A major scholarly collection edited by Shane Denson and Julia Leyda, and published by REFRAME's open access ebook imprint.
If cinema and television, as the dominant media of the 20th century, shaped and reflected our cultural sensibilities, how do new digital media in the 21st century help to shape and reflect new forms of sensibility? In this collection, Denson and Leyda have gathered a range of essays that approach this question by way of a critical engagement with the notion of "post-cinema." Contributors explore key experiential, technological, political, historical, and ecological aspects of the transition from a cinematic to a post-cinematic media regime and articulate both continuities and disjunctures between film's first and second centuries.
Download: PDF 13mb and PDF 9mb
Perspectives on Post-Cinema: An Introduction – Shane Denson and Julia Leyda
1. Parameters for Post-Cinema 1.1 What is Digital Cinema? – Lev Manovich 1.2 Post-Continuity: An Introduction – Steven Shaviro 1.3 DVDs, Video Games, and the Cinema of Interactions – Richard Grusin
2. Experiences of Post-Cinema 2.1 The Scene of the Screen: Envisioning Photographic, Cinematic, and Electronic "Presence" – Vivian Sobchack 2.2 Post-Cinematic Affect – Steven Shaviro 2.3 Flash-Forward: The Future is Now – Patricia Pisters 2.4 Towards a Non-Time Image: Notes on Deleuze in the Digital Era – Sergi Sánchez 2.5 Crazy Cameras, Discorrelated Images, and the Post-Perceptual Mediation of Post-Cinematic Affect – Shane Denson 2.6 The Error-Image: On the Technics of Memory – David Rambo
3. Techniques and Technologies of Post-Cinema 3.1 Cinema Designed: Visual Effects Software and the Emergence of the Engineered Spectacle – Leon Gurevitch 3.2 Bullet Time and the Mediation of Post-Cinematic Temporality – Andreas Sudmann 3.3 The Chora Line: RealD Incorporated – Caetlin Benson-Allott 3.4 Splitting the Atom: Post-Cinematic Articulations of Sound and Vision – Steven Shaviro
4. Politics of Post-Cinema 4.1 Demon Debt: Paranormal Activity as Recessionary Post-Cinematic Allegory – Julia Leyda 4.2 On the Political Economy of the Contemporary (Superhero) Blockbuster Series – Felix Brinker 4.3 Reality Effects: The Ideology of the Long Take in the Cinema of Alfonso Cuarón – Bruce Isaacs 4.4 Metamorphosis and Modulation: Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan – Steen Christiansen 4.5 Biopolitical Violence and Affective Force: Michael Haneke's Code Unknown – Elena del Río
5. Archaeologies of Post-Cinema 5.1 The Relocation of Cinema – Francesco Casetti 5.2 Early/Post-Cinema: The Short Form, 1900/2000 – Ruth Mayer 5.3 Post-Cinematic Atavism – Richard Grusin 5.4 Ride into the Danger Zone: Top Gun (1986) and the Emergence of the Post-Cinematic – Michael Loren Siegel 5.5 Life in Those Shadows! Kara Walker's Post-Cinematic Silhouettes – Alessandra Raengo
6. Ecologies of Post-Cinema 6.1 The Art of Morphogenesis: Cinema in and beyond the Capitalocene – Adrian Ivakhiv 6.2 Anthropocenema: Cinema in the Age of Mass Extinctions – Selmin Kara 6.3 Algorithmic Sensibility: Reflections on the Post-Perceptual Image – Mark B. N. Hansen 6.4 The Post-Cinematic Venue: Towards an Infrastructuralist Poetics – Billy Stevenson
7. Dialogues on Post-Cinema 7.1 The Post-Cinematic in Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Activity 2 – Therese Grisham, Julia Leyda, Nicholas Rombes, and Steven Shaviro 7.2 Post-Cinematic Affect: A Conversation in Five Parts – Paul Bowman, Kristopher L. Cannon, Elena del Río, Shane Denson, Adrian Ivakhiv, Patricia MacCormack, Michael O'Rourke, Karin Sellberg, and Steven Shaviro 7.3 Post-Continuity, the Irrational Camera, Thoughts on 3D – Shane Denson, Therese Grisham, and Julia Leyda 7.4 Post-Cinema, Digitality, Politics – Julia Leyda, Rosalind Galt, and Kylie Jarrett
- The Arclight Guidebook to Media History and the Digital Humanities
"A Guide to the Arclight Guidebook" by Eric Hoyt, Kit Hughes, and Charles R. Acland
PART I: Searching and Mapping 1) "The Quick Search and Slow Scholarship: Researching Film Formats" by Haidee Wasson; 2) "Search and Re-search: Digital Print Archives and the History of Multi-sited Cinema" by Gregory A. Waller; 3) "Using Digital Maps to Investigate Cinema History" by Laura Horak; 4) "Field Sketches with Arclight: Mapping the Industrial Film Sector" by Kit Hughes
PART II: Approaching the Database 5) "Low-Tech Digital" by Charles R. Acland; 6) "Excavating Film History with Metadata Analysis: Building and Searching the ECHO Early Cinema Credits Database" by Derek Long; 7) "Show Me the History! Big Data Goes to the Movies" by Deb Verhoeven; 8) "How Is a Digital Project Like a Film?" by Miriam Posner
PART III: Analyzing Images, Sounds, Words 9) "Coding and Visualizing the Beauty in Hating Michelle Phan: Exploratory Experiments with YouTube, Images, and Discussion Boards" by Tony Tran; 10) "Looking for Bachelors in American Silent Film: Experiments with Digital Methods" by Lisa Spiro; 11) "Terminological Traffic in the Movie Business" by Charles R. Acland & Fenwick McKelvey; 12) "Digital Tools for Film Analysis: Small Data" by Lea Jacobs & Kaitlin Fyfe; 13) "The Slices of Cinema: Digital Surrealism as Research Strategy" by Kevin L. Ferguson
PART IV: Process, Product, and Publics 14) "Digital Tools for Television Historiography: Researching and Writing the History of US Daytime Soap Opera" by Elana H. Levine; 15) "When Worlds Collide: Sharing Historical Advertising Research on Tumblr" by Cynthia B. Meyers; 16) "Networking Moving Image History: Archives, Scholars, and the Media Ecology Project" by Mark Williams; 17) "Curating, Coding, Writing: Expanded Forms of Scholarly Production" by Eric Hoyt; "Keywords and Online Resources" by Robert Hunt and Tony Tran
- Open Access Film and Media Studies Journal Issues x 4:
NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Autumn 2016_#Home
- Features:
- Even today there are people who think these harmless little books are dangerous: An interview with David Bordwell by Malte Hagener
- From single male guest worker to Muslim: An archaeology of iterating archival footage on Dutch television by Andrea Meuzelaar
- The politics of spatiality in experimental nonfiction cinema: Jonathan Perel's 'Toponimia' by Patrick Brian Smith
- For here there is no place that does not see you: 'Minority Report' and art as de/legitimisation by Josef Früchtl
- Special section: #Home
- The Calais Jungle: Mediations of home by Mireille Rosello
- From the bedroom to LA: Revisiting the settings of early video blogs on YouTube by Rainer Hillrichs
- The filmic representation of home in transnational families: The case of 'I for India' by Efrén Cuevas
- The home screen as an anchor point for mobile media use: Technologies, practices, identities by Stefan Werning
- Songs of home (and away): Ethnically-coded diegetic music and multidirectional nostalgia in fiction films about Polish migrants by Kris Van Heuckelom and Iwona Guść
- Festival reviews: edited by Marijke de Valck and Skadi Loist (Film Festival Research Network)
- How do film festivals work?: A conversation with Joshua Oppenheimer by Greg de Cuir Jr
- Virtual futures and cinematic pasts at the 65th Melbourne International Film Festival by Kirsten Stevens
- Films from Asia, attention around the world: 18th Far East Film Festival, Udine by Jinuo Diao
- Exhibition reviews: edited by Miriam De Rosa and Malin Wahlberg (NECS Publication Committee)
- Pierdom by Simon Roberts by Lavinia Brydon and Olu Jenzen
- A place between desire and experience: Afterthoughts on Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting by Carlos Kong
- Book reviews: edited by Lavinia Brydon and Alena Strohmaier (NECS Publication Committee)
- Dreaming of Cinema / Slow Cinema by James Newton
- A geography of resistance: Locating US underground film and TV cultures by Andrea Mariani
- Audiovisual essays: guest edited by Catherine Grant
- The audiovisual essay as performative research by Catherine Grant
- House Arrest by Domietta Torlasco
- The Place of Voiceover in Academic Audiovisual Film and Television Criticism by Ian Garwood
- Being Bowie by Will Brooker and Rebecca Hughes
NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Spring 2016_'Small data'
- Features
- A philosophy of weaving the web: An interview with media theorist Sebastian Giessmann by Geert Lovink
- Remake: Chantal Akerman's and John Smith's plays on reality by Clara Miranda Scherffig
- Videographic film studies and the analysis of camera movement by Volker Pantenburg
- Photobiographies: The Derrida documentaries as film-philosophy by Robert Sinnerbrink
- 'The Right Stuff': From Western to melodrama and comedy by Wim Staat
- Pleasure | Obvious | Queer: A conversation with Richard Dyer by Catherine Grant and Jaap Kooijman
- Special section: Small data
- Forms of binding: On data and not 'fitting in' by Anirban Gupta-Nigam
- Compact cinematics by Pepita Hesselberth and Maria Poulaki
- From Saul Bass to participatory culture: Opening title sequences in contemporary television series by Valentina Re
- Database aesthetics, modular storytelling, and the intimate small worlds of Korsakow documentaries by Anna Wiehl
- Towards a minor data manifesto by Jacek Smolicki and Alberto Frigo
- Exhibition reviews: edited by Miriam De Rosa and Malin Wahlberg (NECS Publication Committee)
- Ryoji Ikeda at ZKM by Joo Yun Lee
- Re-enacting pre-existing image collections in Akram Zaatari's 'Unfolding' by Olivia Eriksson
- The milieu of poetry: Yuri An's 'The Unharvested Sea' and 'Sailing Words' by Adeena Mey
- Festival reviews: edited by Marijke de Valck and Skadi Loist (Film Festival Research Network)
- Of calendars and industries: IDFA and CPH:DOX by Aida Vallejo
- Human rights, film, and social change: Screening Rights Film Festival, Birmingham Centre for Film Studies by Sonia Tascón
- Rediscovering Frantz Fanon at Scotland's Africa in Motion film festival by Prince Bubacarr Aminata Sankanu
- Book reviews: edited by Lavinia Brydon and Alena Strohmaier (NECS Publication Committee)
- Complex series and struggling cable guys by Anne Gre Wabeke
- New media configurations and socio-cultural dynamics in Asia and the Arab world by Najmeh Moradiyan Rizi
- Audiovisual essays: guest edited by Dana Linssen
- Whose Cinema: The video-essay on the big screen of the International Film Festival Rotterdam by Dana Linssen
- Live Streaming US by Paula Albuquerque
- re_making by Juan Daniel Molero
- Warped Reflections: The Cinematic Identity of Helmut Berger by Hugo Emmerzael
- SEQUENCE (4.1 [2016]) — 'THINKING WITH DIGITS: Cinema and the Digital-Analogue Opposition' by Paul Atkinson
- SEQUENCE (5.1 [2016]) — 'Silence' by Liz Greene
- New website:
- AHRC-funded CHINESE FILM FESTIVAL STUDIES NETWORK edited by Chris Berry and Luke Robinson. This research network brings together scholars in the UK, China, other parts of Asia, Europe and the USA who are working on film festivals in Chinese-language territories and cultures (including the People's Republic, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere): http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/chinesefilmfeststudies/
The website collects materials relevant to Chinese Film Festival Studies, including reports on network events, bibliographies, lists of and reports on film festivals, and much more.
- Other Open Access Resources
- TALKS@MFM – REFRAME continues with its series of video and audio recordings of research presentations and masterclasses held at the School of Media, Film and Music, University of Sussex:


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Philipp Petzschner attended the players' party thrown by this week's BMW Open in Munich — and we're glad he knows how to dress up! (Marat: take notes, ok?) Marcos Baghdatis also showed up with goofy camo Zorro mask. Browse: BMW Open party pics.
Draw: Petzschner, the other half of our favorite German doubles duo — honestly, we wonder what the slash fic must be like for these two — is still in the running for Germany's next hot player along with Florian Mayer, qualifier Julian Reister, Philipp Kohlschreiber, lucky loser Denis Gremelmayr, and wildcard Dustin Brown. Petzsch upset top seed Mikhail Youzhny and faces Potito Starace in the quarters. (Draw: BMW Open)
More: See shots of Petzschner in his on-court Erke kit after the cut…
(play images via Getty Images; party photo by Thomas Exler)


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Agent – A living person who is the focus of poltergeist activity.
Amulet - An object that is thought to bring good luck or have the power to protect from ghosts or spirits and ward off evil.
Apparition - a spectral image of a person that materializes even though a physical body is not present.
Apport – A physical object that can materialize and appear at will in the presence of a medium.
Asport – A physical object that a spirit teleports to another location or makes disappear.
Astral Body – The body that a person occupies during an out-of-body experience.
Astral Plane – A world that is believed to exist above our physical world.
Astral Projection – The intentional act of having the spirit leave the body, whereas an out-of-body experience will happen involuntarily. (See out of body experience).
Astrology - The theory and practice of the positions and aspects of celestial bodies in the belief that they have an influence on the course of natural earthly occurrences and human affairs.
Aura – An invisible emanation of light that seems to surround a person or thing which is often thought to reflect a person's personality.
Automatic Writing – This method of obtaining information from disembodied spirits is used by mediums in which the spirit takes control over the medium causing them to translate unconscious information on paper without being aware of the contents.
Automatism – An unconscious or involuntary muscular movement caused by spirits. (See automatic writing)
Autoscopy – The visual hallucination or image of one's body looking back at themselves from a position outside the body. (See out of body experience).
Ball Lightning - A rare form of lightning in the shape of a glowing red ball that can last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. Typically associated with Thunderstorms, these spheres are thought to consist of ionized gas.
Banshee – A wailing spirit or "death omen" that will appear to be in two different places at the same time.
Call – A call is the response that is made by a subject during a card-guessing test or during any other type of ESP test.
Card Guessing – Card guessing is used as an experimental test for ESP in which a subject tries to guess the identity of a set of cards.
Case Study – An in-depth investigation of an individual subject.
Channeling – In this modern day method of spirit communication, a spirit will pass information directly to a medium or channeler who will then relay the information on to the listener(s).
Clairaudience – An auditory form of ESP paranormal information is received outside the range of normal perception through voices, whispers and auditory impressions.
Clairsentience – A general term for clairvoyance and clairaudience. Clairsentience typically occurs in the form of ESP through physical sensations or smells.
Clairvoyance – An acute insight or perceptiveness that enables you to see objects or events that cannot be perceived by the senses in the form of mental imagery and intuition. (See ESP)
Closed Deck – A set of cards used in a card guessing deck in which each card will appear a fixed number of times. The statistical analysis obtained from a closed card deck differs from that of an open card deck. (See Card Guessing).
Cold Reading – This is a technique commonly used by fake mind readers, mediums and magicians which allows them to obtain previously unknown information about a person by asking a general series of statements, questions and answers.
Control – This is a procedure in paranormal psychology that ensures that the experiment is conducted in a standard fashion so that the results will no be influenced by any extraneous factors.
Control Group – A group of outside subjects whose performance or abilities are compared with the experimental subjects.
Collective Apparition - A rare type of sighting in which more than one person sees the same apparition or phenomena.
Crisis Apparition – An apparition that is seen when a person is seriously ill, seriously injured or at the point of death.
Dematerialization – This word is used to describe a spirit or specter meaning to deprive of or lose apparent physical substance or in simpler terms, without flesh.
Déjà vu - An impression or dull familiarity of having seen or experienced something before.
Demon - An inferior deity often spoken of in religious text as pure evil.
Direct Voice Phenomenon (DVP) – An auditory "spirit" voice that is spoken directly to the sitters at a séance.
Dice Test – An experimental test in which a subject attempts to influence the fall of dice. This study is used for the investigation of psychokinesis.
Doppelganger – An exact spirit double or mirror image of a person which is considered to be very negative.
Earthbound – A term referring to a ghost or spirit that was unable to cross over to the other side at the time of death and is therefore stuck on earth.
Ectoplasm – An immaterial or ethereal substance associated with spirit manifestations.
Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) – Voices and sounds from beyond that are captured and recorded on magnetic tape.
Elementals – Spiritualists commonly refer to this term to describe mean or angry spirits sometimes also called "Earth Spirits".
EMF Detector – (See Magnetometer)
Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) - Communication or perception by means other than the physical senses.
Exorcism - The banishment of an entity or entities i.e. spirits, ghosts and demons that is thought to possess or haunt a location or human being or animal. The ritual, which can be religious in nature, is conducted by an exorcist who will call upon a Higher Power to cast away any evil forces that may reside there.
False Awakening – The event in which a person believes they are awake but are actually dreaming.
Ghost – A generic term referring to a form of apparition or supernatural entity which is typically the visual appearance of a deceased human's spirit soul.
Ghost Hunting – A carefully controlled research project in which various methods and equipment are used to investigate reports of ghosts and hauntings.
Goat – An experiment in which the subject does not believe in the ability for which they are being tested.
Ghoul – Demonic or parasitic entity that feeds upon human remains.
Hallucination – The perception of sights and sounds that are not actually present.
Haunting – Reoccurring ghostly phenomena that returns to a location where no one is physically present. Ghosts generally haunt places and not people.
Hellhound / Black Shuck – A spectral death omen in the form of a ghostly dog.
Hot Reading – A devious or fraudulent reading in which the reader has been given prior knowledge of the sitter.
Hypnosis – A technique that induces a sleep like state in which the subject acts only on external suggestion.
Ignis fatuus - A phosphorescent or spectral light that that is alleged to be an indication of death. This phenomenon is thought to be caused by spontaneous combustion of gases emitted by rotting organic matter.
Illusion – A delusional perception between what is perceived and what is reality.
Intuition – Non-paranormal knowledge that is gained through a perceptive insight.
ITC (Instrumental Trans-Communication)- Communication with the spirit world utilizing electronic devices such as TV or radio.
Levitation – To lift or raise a physical object in apparent defiance of gravity.
Life Review – A flashback of a person's life that is typically associated with near-death experiences.
Lucid Dreaming - A dream state in which one is conscious enough to recognize that one is in the dream state and is then able to control dream events.
Magnetometer (EMF, gaussmeter) - An instrument for measuring the magnitude and direction of a magnetic field typically used by paranormal researchers to detect a ghost's magnetic energy.
Marian Apparitions – The event in which the Virgin Mary is seen.
Materialization – The act of forming something solid from the air. One of the most difficult and impressive materializations is when part or all of a ghost or spirit can be seen, especially if the face is recognizable.
Medium - Someone who professes to be able communicate with spirits on behalf of another living being, acting as a midway point halfway between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Mesmerism – A hypnotic induction of a sleep or trance State (See Hypnotism).
Mist – A Photographed anomaly that appears as a blanket of light. There is no substantial proof that these are related to paranormal phenomenon.
Motor Automatism – Bodily movement or functions that are accompanied but not controlled by consciousness (See automatic writing).
Near Death Experience (NDE) – An experience that is reported by people who clinically die, or come close to actual death and are revived. These events often include encounters with spirit guides, seeing dead relatives or friends, life review, out-of-body Experiences (OBE), or a moment of decision where they are able to decide or are told to turn back.
Old Hag Syndrome – A nocturnal phenomena that involves a feeling of immobilization, suffocation, odd smells and feelings and is sometimes accompanied my immense fear (See Sleep Paralysis).
Orb – A photographed anomaly that theoretically represents the "spirit" of a deceased person. It will appear as a ball of light on film though is some cases; they are not seen at the time of the photo. Since there are many reasonable circumstances (dust, snow, rain, insects, reflection, lens flare, etc.) orbs still remain a highly controversial subject.
Ouija Board - A pre-printed board with letters, numerals, and words used to receive spirit communications. Typically a planchette is employed to spell out words and point out numbers or letters.
Out-of-body experience (OBE) – A sensation or experience in which ones self or spirit travels to a different location than their physical body (See Astral Projection).
Paranormal – Referring to something that is beyond the range of normal human experience or scientific explanation.
Parapsychology - The study of the evidence for psychological phenomena that are inexplicable by science.
Percipient - A person who sees (i.e., perceives) an apparition.
Phantom - Something that is seen, heard, or sensed, but has no physical reality (See Ghost).
Poltergeist - a non-human spirit entity which literally means "noisy ghost" but is usually more malicious and destructive than ghosts of dead human beings. Traditional poltergeists activities are thumping and banging, levitating or the moving of objects, stone throwing and starting fires. It is thought that poltergeist activity in some instances may be brought on subconsciously by an adolescent agent or females under the age of 25.
Precognition – The ability to predict or have knowledge of something in advance of its occurrence, especially by extrasensory perception (See Clairvoyance).
Psi – A letter in the Greek alphabet that denotes psychic phenomena.
Psychic - A person who is responsive to psychic forces with above average ESP abilities.
Psychokinesis (PK) - The power of the mind to affect matter without physical contact, especially in inanimate and remote objects by the exercise of psychic powers.
Psychometry - The ability or art of divining information about people or events associated with an object solely by touching or being near to it.
Pyrokinesis – The ability to unconsciously control and sometimes in rare cases produce fire with their mind only.
Radio Voice Phenomenon (RVP) - Receiving the voice of a deceased human being through a regular radio.
Reciprocal Apparition - An extremely rare type of spirit phenomenon in which both the agent and percipient are able to see and respond to each other.
Remote Viewing – Used by some psychics, this is a procedure in which the percipient or psychic attempts to become physically aware of the experience of an agent who is at a distant, unknown location through ESP.
Retrocognition – An experience in which a person finds themselves in the past and is able to see and experience events in which they had no prior knowledge.
Séance - A meeting or gathering of people, usually lead by a medium to receive spiritualistic messages, manifestations or communication with the dead.
Shaman – A member of certain tribal societies who acts as a medium between the visible world and an invisible spirit world and who practices magic or sorcery for purposes of healing, divination, and control over natural events.
Sheep – An experiment in which the subject believes in the ability in which they are being tested.
Simulcra – This is a word used to describe the seeing of faces, figures and images in ordinary, everyday object such as rocks, foliage, etc.
Specter – A ghostly apparition; a phantom (See Ghost).
Spirit Box - An ITC device that scans radio frequencies in order to communicate with spirits.
Spiritualism - The belief system that the dead are able to communicate with the living, through an intermediary or medium.
Stigmata – Unexplained bodily marks, sores, or sensations of pain corresponding in location to the crucifixion wounds of Christ.
Subjective Apparitions – Hallucinations of apparitions or other phenomena that are created by our own minds.
Supernatural - Of or relating to existence outside the natural world. As opposed to paranormal, the term "supernatural" often connotes divine or demonic intervention.
Tarot Cards - A set of (usually 72) cards that include 22 cards representing virtues and vices, death and fortune etc. used by fortunetellers to help predict future events.
Telekinesis - The paranormal movement of objects by scientifically inexplicable means.
Telepathy – Communication from one mind to another through means other than the senses.
Teleportation - A method of transportation in which matter or information is dematerialized, usually instantaneously, at one point and recreated at another.
Thought Form – An apparition produced solely by the power of the human mind.
Trance - A hypnotic, cataleptic, or ecstatic state in which one becomes detached from their physical surroundings.
Vortex – An anomaly that appears as a funnel or rope-like image in photographs. These images are sometimes thought to represent ghosts, collections of orbs or gateways which travel to a wormhole in time-space. There has been no substantial scientific evidence to support any of these theories.
White Noise – An Acoustical or electrical noise of which the intensity is the same at all frequencies within a given band.
Zener Cards – A set of 25 cards for use in card-guessing tests of ESP.
Copyright © Antietam Paranormal Society. All rights reserved.


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The mayor of Mississauga, Ont., says she's "shocked and saddened" after a teenage boy was killed and five other people were wounded when gunfire erupted in the city west of Toronto on Saturday evening.
Bonnie Crombie called the incident a "senseless act of gun violence" and says her thoughts and prayers are with the victims' families.
Peel Regional Police Chief Chris McCord said at a news conference late Saturday night that according to witnesses, multiple suspects unleashed a barrage of gunfire from semi-automatic weapons near a parkette behind an apartment building at around 6:20 p.m.
He said a 17-year-old old boy died at the scene and that five others — a 13-year-old, a 16-year-old, two 17-year-olds and a woman in her 50s — were injured.
McCord said one of the wounded was in serious condition and that the other four suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
No suspect information has been released as officers continued to canvass the area for surveillance footage and police are asking anyone with information on the shooting to come forward.
I'm deeply shocked & saddened to hear of this senseless gun violence in our city, it's unacceptable. I'm committed to ensuring Mississauga remains one of the safest cities by helping to get illegal guns off our streets. My thoughts remain with the young victims & their families.
— Bonnie Crombie 🇨🇦 (@BonnieCrombie) September 15, 2019
Crombie thanked first responders who rushed to the scene and she says she hopes to take action in response to the shooting.
"As a member of the police board, I am committed to ensuring Mississauga remains one of the safest cities by working to get illegal guns off our streets," said Crombie in a statement.
McCord has said that "a lot" of shell casings were found scattered over a wide area and that several vehicles were hit by the gunfire.
He said it's early in the investigation and that many questions about the incident remained unanswered, including the motive, whether the victims were targeted and whether the shooting was gang related.
A music video was being filmed near the scene of the shooting, but McCord said he didn't know if it was in any way linked to the case.
The Canadian Press